On the heat. Extra hot

Ingredients

• 1.2 kg mutton, cubed
• — BLACK ROASTED CURRY POWDER
• 3 tbsp coriander seed · 1 tbsp cumin
• 1 tbsp fennel · 1 tsp fenugreek
• 1 cinnamon · 6 cloves · 4 cardamom
• 2 tbsp raw rice · 3 tbsp desiccated coconut
• — THE POT
• 3 tbsp coconut oil · 3 onions
• 2 tbsp ginger–garlic · 10 curry leaves
• 2 pandan leaves · 1 lemongrass, bruised
• 2 tbsp chilli powder · 1 tsp turmeric
• 400 ml coconut milk · tamarind · salt

Method

1. Roast the curry-powder spices in a dry pan over medium heat, stirring constantly, until they are genuinely dark brown — nearly black. This takes 10 minutes and smells alarming. Cool and grind.
2. Coconut oil, curry leaves, pandan and lemongrass. Onions, 12 minutes.
3. Ginger–garlic, then the black curry powder, chilli and turmeric, one minute.
4. Mutton in, turned through for 8 minutes. Add 300 ml water, lid on, 75 minutes.
5. Coconut milk and a walnut of tamarind pulp in. Simmer uncovered 25 minutes — do not boil hard or the coconut milk splits.
6. Salt at the end. Rest 10 minutes. Rice, and a coconut sambol.

Cook's note. Take the roast further than feels right. Under-roasted, this tastes like an ordinary curry. The near-black colour and slightly bitter edge are the whole point.

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